Vacation
by Cherished Tenshi
Summary: Seven days of vacation equals seven days of getting to know each other better. Or harassing. Or stalking. Or angsting. Or thinking. Or stealing. Or running. Any of those things worked. Platonic Kariya/Uzuki, pre-game.


**Disclaimer: **I don't own _The World Ends With You _do I honestly look like I do.

**Title: **Vacation

**Summary: **Seven days of vacation equals seven days of getting to know each other better. Or harassing. Or stalking. Or angsting. Or thinking. Or stealing. Or running. Any of those things worked. Platonic Kariya/Uzuki, pre-game.

**Rating: **T for both of their golden mouths.

**A/N: **So I challenged myself to not write either Neku or Joshua. It was very hard, but this is the end result.

And then Joshua just _has to go and have a mini mention. _God damn it.

Nevermind that's two mentions DAMN.

WAIT IT'S THREE GET OUT OF HERE JOSH.

HEADCANONS EVERYWHERE YEAH.

Also Uzuki is OOC but I think she would have a nice (in the loosest sense) side around Kariya and it's two years before the actual game so _shush._

I am only posting this because of the horrible lack of Reaper fics in general.

Honestly.

Also this is a draft kind of thing so I might get back to it one day but yeah. Enjoy? Leave a review? Hate? Up to you.

I did not mean for the angst to creep in it just HAPPENED.

* * *

Kariya tries not to chuckle at the gold fish look expressed all over Uzuki's face as she reads the message on her phone, but in the end, he results to snorting. Loudly.

"_Vacation!?"_

"What?" He sticks another lollipop into his mouth, smirking around the small stick. "You _seriously_ thought that we work flat out all of the time?" He lets out another snort.

She flips her phone shut with an angry screech, and Kariya thinks that she must have been some kind of hyena in her past life before life before death. According to Shades, he had been a fox. That was pretty cool.

"So they expect us to _relax_?" she asks, voice trembling with anger.

"Well," Kariya drawls. "The last time I checked, that was what most people generally do on vacations."

"We're dead."

"Still people."

"Still dead."

Not for the first time, he wonders on just _what _the Composer was thinking when he decided to smack the two of them together. Opposites attract, maybe? Or the childish side in him coming out?

Either way, he's not entirely ungrateful – the girl's been a fresh blast of air from the food and math puns flying all over the place, since now it's served with an extra topping of bitching and _what do __you mean we don't work every day_ _well we do now_– but he's not going to admit that to anyone else, much less himself.

Oh. He just did.

_Zing_.

"C'mon girl," he says. "Let's go and find somethin' to do."

* * *

Their first, and only, stop is the Sunshine store tucked around in a small corner of where Hachiko stands.

Uzuki stares at the double cheeseburger messily presented in front of her as if it's grown two heads. A bit clichéd, but that's the only way Kariya can really think of describing her face at the moment.

The Reaper in question is too busy wolfing down the three milkshakes and five hot dogs to make some kind of snide comment.

After a few minutes, Uzuki breaks the awkward silence. Sort of. She tries to, at least, and fails. "Um..."

Kariya picks off some lettuce hanging off the edge of the burnt sausage as he regards Uzuki. "Hmm?"

"How the _hell _do you eat so much?"

He stuffs the hot dog down his throat, grinning. He doesn't bother to wipe off the sauce smeared around his mouth. "Like this." The high metabolism helps, too.

Uzuki pulls a face at his manners, or lack of. "_Shut up._"

"Y'see, Uzuki; you get the food of choice that you want, then ya open your mouth, then-"

"-_I know," _she snaps angrily, poking the straw around in her glass of water. Kariya briefly wonders, if to her, it's half empty or half full; he's always thought that the thing's gotta be half empty, because since when were people stupid enough to only full a glass halfway, or maybe it's something else – but he smirks, instead, trying to snap out of those thoughts. Deep thinking never ended well.

That was what happened to the last Composer. He spent too much time thinking, too little time acting, only acting too late when a thirteen-year-old ended his existence with the pull of a trigger.

He glances down to her untouched burger. "You don't _look _like you know."

Uzuki throws the burger at his face and storms out of the restaurant.

* * *

The two of them are sitting on a bench nearby (Uzuki's gotten the lucky fortune of having an old man sit on top of her lap) watching as the owner of the store wobbles his two chins furiously at thin air. Kariya's struggling to not choke on the lollipop in his mouth, as the manager smacks a poor waiter and demands for him to find the two most _rude _guests who had left without paying for their meals. Of course, the two of them are somewhat invisible to mortal eyes, what with being Reapers and existing on a different plane and all, so unless the old man dies in the next five years and becomes a Reaper, Kariya hugely doubts that they'll have a bill to pay in the foreseeable future. It just leaves them with one less place to crash upon, but details.

"Ya see." He slings the lollipop into a bin nearby, throwing one leg over the other and reclining back. "It ain't all bad being dead."

Uzuki leans forward, hands resting under her chin, caught in a rare moment of thought that doesn't involve working. The old man looks like he has two violet eyes blinking out of his chest, complete with a scarf of pink.

"...Hey," she says, quietly.

Kariya bends forward to see his partner clearer. "Yeah?"

"You ever miss living?"

Just _thinking _of living makes his chest squeeze in some strange way, so he dives off that train and into the deep canyon below. "Shouldn't I be the one asking you that?"

She glances to him, looking slightly amused. "You're avoiding the question."

"As you are, cowgirl."

"I've only been dead for a week." She sits up straight again, staring at the cloudless sky overhead. "You need to give me some time, stupid."

"Well, I've been dead for longer than I care to remember." Longer than he _can _remember, but it wasn't like he'd ever had a good memory to begin with. "Bit pointless asking me that, if I can't remember. I've been dead for too long, and you've been dead for too little."

Her eyes snap to his then, no doubt wanting to learn more about him; he's always been carefully stating around the subject of his past, while Uzuki was more than happy to boast; sorry, _recall _her feats on making the school track team and winning at the shooting range (explains the gun) and being spoilt rotten and how a car literally snapped her life in half.

Sounds a lot more exciting than his.

"You've gotta remember _something_."

He stands up, stretches, offers her a hand up, because he can remember _that _much from his time as a Player. "Just lemme tell you this; it wasn't nearly as exciting as moving my two feet."

She pulls a face at him, ("Whatever you say, _grandpa_.") but accepts his hand up, holding on for a bit longer than necessary before they head back to his place.

He thinks that's a good sign.

Hopefully.

Maybe.

* * *

Somehow, Kariya is not surprised whenever he awakens to see Uzuki shifting through his stuff loudly, and he really _really _shouldn't be getting used to her crashing at his place every night, especially since it's only about a week and two days, but it's... something. Nice, maybe.

She flicks a pin at his head, bringing him into the real world. "Are you richin _any_ sense of the term?"

He swings his legs over the edge of the bed, quilt drawn protectively over his bare chest. "Nope."

"You _should _be."

"Oh?" he asks, amused. "Should I, now?"

"Your _lollipops_," she says simply, now moving onto his boxers. She earns some respect when she doesn't even blush or wrinkle her nose at them, because _man_, he can smell them from his bed, and he _really_ should get the washing machine fixed soon, but that involves effort, which means no. "How else can you afford them?"

"_Magic._" He doesn't tell her that they were from his girlfriend, back when he was alive, in order to snap him out of smoking. They're probably out of date by about five years, but hey, he's dead; he's not going to get poisoning from them or anything, and they look as fresh as a daisy. "For all you know, I could be sucking the same one _every day._"

_Now _her nose wrinkles, but he can't blame her. "You're not _that _disgusting." Her eyes fall on him, finally. "You're naked, at least. Not sleeping in your clothes is always a good sign."

He cocks an eyebrow up, smirking. "For all you know, I could _only own a single pair of clothes._"

She rolls her eyes, mutters something under her breath that makes him grin, before yanking some coins out of his dirty boxers. "I'm going to wash these coins." She smirks a little. "I don't think any shops are gonna accept them like this."

"For all you know, that could be _the only yen I have._"

"Well. You'll just have to trust me, won't you?"

He doesn't know why that leaves him so breathless.

* * *

He spends the next few hours sleeping, since Uzuki had previously ordered him to _not move an inch _or else she would have his throat (and knowing the girl, she would), only waking up whenever he hears his front door slam shut, followed by the clicking of heels up the stairs.

Kariya lifts his head in time to be assaulted by a flying black hoodie. He picks it up, inspecting it; it's the new Tigre Punks hoodie that had been advertised the other day, and actually looked pretty neat, but since it had been gathering so much attention and all of that crap, he left it, since it was _as expensive as hell. _Not even all of his yen could have bought it.

Without warning, a studded belt smacks his forehead.

"_Uzuki!_"

She grins, fingering a CD in her hands. She throws it onto the bed before sitting down next to him. "Might have gotten the wrong size."

Kariya checks the small label, and is surprised to see that she's gotten his size perfect. "Nah, it's fine." He tries to dismiss it, but really, _how the hell _did she know? "Now, care to explain why you bought it?"

"I saw you looking at it the other day," she says, carefully. "When we were in the Molco store after we got a bunch of Players. You looked like you wanted it, so... uh, I got it?"

"I can see that," he says dryly. "Thanks?"

Uzuki shifts awkwardly on the bed; she's clearly not used to being thanked, or even doing favours for others. Maybe they're not so different after all. "...You own me ramen."

He sits up straight, because where the hell did _that _come from? "You _like _ramen?"

"Shio." And suddenly she's back to her usual self, all smirking and teasing and giggling. "Ah, come _on! _After I went to all of that effort of tracking down that hoodie, just for you? Least I deserve! Five minutes!"

They're too busy staring at each other for about a minute of that time, before Kariya finally sees fit to speak.

"Uh, Uzuki?"

"That's my name."

"I need to get changed."

She humphs. "I know."

"Which is somethin' people do _by themselves._"

"I know."

Kariya hopes that this doesn't become a habit. "So can you _leave?_"

She rolls her eyes. "I've seen more naked people than I've seen straight."

Given that Shibuya's somewhat famous for being a bit, ah, _bent,_ that's not too grand an achievement. "Great, but that relates to this _how?_"

"Hell, I've seen _you _naked before."

"That was _one time._" And on their first day, to boot; that was how they met, but details.

"One time too many. I can deal with another."

The hell. "Your logic – or _lack of –_ is seriously flawed."

She shrugs with a roll of her eyes. "Oh, _fine_, I'll leave. Like, _way_ to make your partner feel welcome."

"I'm buying you ramen." Kariya grabs a grey undershirt from the doomed abyss of eternal darkness better known as underneath his bed, shrugging it on easily. "Now shoo."

Uzuki leaves his room with a small wink, telling him that she'll drag him out in five minutes, and that she tends to skip the numbers two, three, and four while counting.

When he pulls on the belt Uzuki had also gotten him, he's surprised to hear the clattering of coins inside his hoodie pocket. He takes out the money, not sure how to react when he sees that there is, _very conveniently,_ the exact same amount of yen that Uzuki had taken earlier, only more shinier and looking like actual money.

Kariya is sure to smack her confused head ("If we were alive, I would _totally_ report you for assault.") on their way to Dogenzaka.

* * *

On the third day of their vacation, Kariya decides to sneak into Uzuki's jeans the yen coins that she had left in his hoodie, along with a limited edition of Dëf March's new album.

On the fourth day, he finds a shiny skull necklace and a couple of chains to add to his jeans.

The next day, he drops into her bed some kind of miracle comb that had been parading around the D+B store. It's like the two of them are trapped in some kind of contest, desperately trying to outdo the other in terms of gifts; but it's not a contest that either of them will admit aloud.

On the second-last day of their vacation week, he finds some heavy novel about death underneath his pillow covers, along with a shiny new mobile phone.

He swears, because hell, he's not gonna be able to beat that.

Unless he kisses her, like all of the cheesy stuff and movies do.

But she'll probably slap him, and he doesn't like her _that _way. As a friend, maybe. _Girl_friend_? _Hell no.

Death just got interesting.

* * *

Kariya flips open his new phone – black, and how the heck did Uzuki know that that was his favourite colour? - while Uzuki busies herself with brushing out her hair with the new comb.

When Uzuki finishes, he quietly hides her phone away, because it wasn't like he was adding his number to it or anything, smirking as she takes a seat next to him and flicks on the TV onto some kind of soap opera drama; someone's screaming in despair, at the least. Uzuki's arms drape behind her, and she yawns.

"So," Kariya begins. "Today's the last day of our vacation."

"Thank _God_," comes her bored response, near-impossible to hear along her yawns. "I am _soooooo _bored."

"Hey, c'mon." He slings an arm over the beaten edge of the sofa. The whole room is ancient, since Kariya hasn't bothered to redecorate it in years, but with Uzuki around, he has a feeling that will change very soon. "I ain't _that _bad, am I?"

"No," she begins. "You're much worse."

"Hey, Uzuki?" His voice comes out more grave than he'd intended. Oh crap.

Her head whips to face him, trying to look indifferent, but there's no fooling him, but why would she care? Why would _either _of them care; they've only known each other for two weeks, and yet, Kariya feels like he's known her forever. "Don't tell me that you've ran out of points."

"We're on vacation. We're not gonna get erased. _Duh._" He sighs upon seeing her face. "Look. Why the heck did you buy me a phone?"

"It was on sale." Uzuki inspects her fingernails, not looking at him. "'Sides, you're, like, a dinosaur. Needed to get you into the twenty first century, grandpa."

"You're _hilarious_," Kariya dead-pans, but he can't stop himself from smirking. "But how the heck am I meant to top _that?_ Make you the Conductor or something?"

Her eyes light up. "_Really?_"

"Haha, no. The Composer'd have my neck for that."

"But could you?"

"I'm not _that _strong."

She punches his shoulder, and not lightly. "Then don't joke about it! I'll be the Conductor someday, and you'll be tagging along right behind me. Be my servant," she orders.

"Tempting offer, but I'll pass, _rookie._"

He smirks as she groans, sounding exasperated. "Jeez, I can't help that I was born after you!"

"You could have died sooner."

"Yeah, because I was _so _meant to know that I could actually be alive after dying. Thanks for totally telling me that."

"I think the Composer did, you know." Well that had come out of nowhere.

She looks at him, surprised. "Really?"

That's for another time, or maybe never, since the kid would most likely erase him if he ever spilt any of his secrets (like he was even a kid in the first place), so he moves on. "Back to the present."

Violet eyes narrow. "_Stop _avoiding questions!"

"I'm just born with the natural grace." He smirks at her snort of disbelief. "Or died. Either works."

"I know _one_ way that you can top my present."

At that, he freezes. Where did _that _come from? "The hell?"

She looks smug as she goes on. "We can make it a game, you know. Whoever erases the most Players. Loser buys ramen."

"But then I wouldn't be repaying you."

Uzuki frowns. "Huh?"

"Well, we _all _know that I would hammer your ass each and every time."

"Oh!" She stands up with a fierce cross of arms, huffing. "You are _on!_"

"There goes my food worries for the rest of my death."

"_Kariya!_"

He grins and stands up as well. "Let's crash to Dogenzeka. I'll buy, since it's the last day I'll ever have to."

"You-" She slaps his shoulder, seething with anger, but the grin on her face somewhat gives it away. "-Ugh, _why _did I say that!?"

"Yep. Now we're gonna be stuck together for the rest of our days. I'm not _that _bad, honest. I put effort into it when I wanna."

"Which is _never_."

"Details."

They make their way out of the front door, still bickering, and Kariya is somewhat _not _surprised to hear an angry voice.

"_You!_"

Both of them look up at the unfamiliar voice as they exit the door. A man with two chins is wobbling towards them furiously, each step taken as small as his tiny head. Kariya recognizes him as the manager of the restaurant they'd 'accidentally' forgot to pay in.

Oh _hell._

"C'_mon_," he groans. Of _all of the times _that he decides to not warp them into the UG... "You've gotta be_ kiddin' _me."

The man continues rolling towards them. "_You _no pay! My!" He points back to the restaurant, arms waving animatedly. "Me _angry!_"

"He doesn't even _speak_ properly," Uzuki groans. "_Great._"

"Must be all of those chins he has."

She snorts loudly, even as the man suddenly rushes after them with a frying pan in hand with speed equal to his large weight. The whole situation is so surreal, so _unreal_, that it feels all the more real for it.

"Uzuki!"

She turns to him. "Yeah?"

"Follow me!"

"_Whatever_." But she follows.

Kariya can't help but grin as they turn the street corner into the heart of Shibuya, his hand messily locking with Uzuki's, as for once they are lost in the living, lost in the moment of heat.

And he's never felt more alive.


End file.
